Chapter 27
TOM
I sit in my car, engine off, but the dash lights still glowing faintly, a tiny galaxy of red and green that feels absurdly calm compared to the noise inside my head. My hands are locked on the steering wheel, knuckles white. I’m not even sure when I stopped breathing properly.
Pete’s door is still closed ahead of me. Shut like a coffin lid.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Long enough for my chest to ache, long enough for my eyes to sting but not enough for tears to come.
My throat is tight. Every time I replay the look on his face—the bruises, the fear, the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes—I want to kick the dashboard until the airbag bursts.
I want to help him. God, I want to drag him out of that house and never let him go back. But how? How do you save someone who won’t—or can’t—leave?
It’s Daniel all over again.
I press my forehead to the steering wheel.
The smell of leather and cheap car freshener fills my nose.
Memories spool out in a fast-forward blur.
Daniel’s hand on my arm, tightening. Daniel’s voice when it got dark and low.
Me, shrinking. Craig, steady and relentless, holding up a mirror to my life until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Craig, driving me to his and Phil’s place that night.
Craig, telling me I wasn’t crazy, that what was happening was not love.
He helped me escape. Helped me see the light. Helped me build something like a life again.
And now here I am, watching someone else drown and not knowing how to throw a rope without getting dragged under myself.
I stare at the front of Pete’s house. The blinds are drawn. The windows are dark. That house feels like a fortress, a trap. It’s eating him alive.
I think about calling Craig. I think about barging back up the drive. I think about sitting here all night until Pete comes out. All the options feel like failures.
And then my mind slides, unbidden, to Guy.
God, Guy.
It’s been a year and still his name lands like a fist to the chest.
I always hated the word “affair.” Affair sounds like something trivial, like a fling you can sweep off a table when company arrives. What Guy and I had wasn’t cheap or sordid. It was close, intimate, carved out of the loneliness I’d been drowning in.
He was married, yes. I know what that makes me in the eyes of the world. But he was also kind. Funny. Smart in the quiet way that sneaks up on you. We used to sit in his car at night, hands tangled on the gear stick, talking about books, music, anything but the lives we were sneaking away from.
For the first time, I felt like someone actually saw me, not just the version of me I tried to sell on apps or at bars.
It was wrong.
And it was everything I needed.
The guilt was a constant hum, but some nights I thought — this is worth it. This is worth all the risk, all the shame. Because connection like this doesn’t happen twice.
And then, just like that, he was gone.
I don’t even like to say the word.
Dead.
Just like that, he was dead.
As if the syllable could flatten the way he laughed, the smell of his jacket, the way he would reach across the table and tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. It was sudden. Heartbreaking. Torn away before I could even say goodbye properly.
I grip the steering wheel tighter. I don’t want that feeling again. I don’t want to watch someone slip through my fingers, to be standing on the pavement helpless while the door closes for the last time.
But with Pete, it’s starting to feel inevitable.
He’s sliding deeper into something he can’t name and won’t escape from. And me? I’m already caught, already invested, already stupid enough to think I can save him.
I know I can’t stay here all night, so I start my car and look into the rear-view mirror
I blink, heart thudding.
A car is parked down the street behind me. Grey. Compact. Familiar.
The grey BMW.
Is this the same one that followed me?
I catch a glimpse of the driver’s silhouette but the streetlight is behind them, making a halo of shadow. My pulse spikes.
No. This is paranoia. This is me spiralling.
I put the car in gear, pull off the kerb. The BMW pulls off too.
I take a left I don’t need to take. The BMW takes it too.
Another turn. Another. The same headlights in the mirror.
My palms go slick. My chest feels tight. My therapist’s voice pipes up in my head, calm and clinical: count your breaths, Tom. Four in, four out. Ground yourself.
But it’s hard to ground yourself when you’re sure you’re being hunted.
I speed up. The BMW stays back but not far enough. My heart’s hammering now, breath loud in my ears. I cut down a side street, loop back around, hit the roundabout and take the exit at the last second. The BMW hesitates, then follows.
Okay. Not paranoia.
I drive faster, weaving through Clifton’s narrow roads, past the Georgian terraces, past the coffee shops now shuttered and dark.
Another turn. Another.
Finally, at the bottom of a long hill, I slam on the brakes. The BMW is forced to stop behind me.
In a move driven by adrenaline, unlike anything I would normally do, I dive out of my car and approach the car behind.
For a long second, nothing happens.
Then the driver’s door opens.
A woman steps out.
Streetlight catches her face.
And I know her.
It takes me a moment to place why. She’s a little older than the photos, hair tied back, eyes sharper, but it’s her.
Emma.
Chris’s sister.